Who's left to reunite?

Given the big news of the Soundgarden reunion this month, and the successful reunion tours last year from Alice in Chains, Blink-182, the Cranberries, Stone Temple Pilots, Blur, and Sugar Ray, I got to wondering: what big bands from the golden era of grunge still need to reunite? A partial list:

1. Bush. Probably the biggest rock band of the '90s yet to get back together, though not for lack of trying. Gavin Rossdale has been making noise about a reunion in recent years, and if you believe Internet rumor, his 2008 solo album Wanderlust was intended to be a Bush album until ex-guitarist Nigel Pulsford refused to participate. The only other member besides Rossdale who's still active in music is drummer Robin Goodridge, who is in the Stone Gods with the former members of the Darkness.* Odds of reunion: not great, unless Rossdale wants to "reform" Bush with some session musicians.

2. 10,000 Maniacs. While some version of 10,000 Maniacs is still together and touring sporadically (centered around the original bass player, keyboard player, and drummer), we're of course referring to a reunion of Natalie Merchant with her first band. One complication to a possible reunion: lead guitarist Rob Buck, who wrote most of the band's best songs with Merchant, died 10 years ago. In addition, Merchant's spent most of this decade dormant, so if she really wanted to do a reunion, she probably would have cashed in by now. Odds of reunion: Pretty low. Merchant has a new album coming out in March (her first in 7 years), so if this were to happen, it certainly wouldn't be this year.

3. Belly. One of my favorite bands of the '90s (their second album is a lost classic), they broke up in 1996 and lead singer Tanya Donelly has pursued a sporadic solo career since then. Ex-bassist Gail Greenwood is still active in music, and the Gorman brothers, the band's guitarist and drummer, are supposedly commercial photographers now. Odds of reunion: better than the first two. Although I wonder how many people besides me want to see them back together.

4. Smashing Pumpkins / Everclear / Hole. All three bands are technically "still together," though in reality they've become solo projects for their respective lead singers. An actual, all-original-members lineup reunion tour might be pretty cool (Lesser bands from the era like Sponge and Seven Mary Three fit in this category, too).

5. Jesus Jones / EMF. Because hey, why not?

* Interestingly, the rights to Bush's '90s albums are now owned by Kirtland Records, the label run by the ex-drummer of Deep Blue Something. When Trauma (home to Bush, No Doubt, and the Flys) went belly-up, Kirtland bought the Bush master tapes at auction. obtained the Bush master tapes (thanks for the correction, Tami).

This week in reunions... The Wallflowers

* With Jakob Dylan back in the fold, the Wallflowers are touring in June and July. No new album as of yet, though be honest: do you know anyone who's bought one of their albums since 1998? I didn't think so.

* Taking a page from the Everclear playbook, Evan Dando is releasing an all-covers album with the Lemonheads, and going on tour in June. This isn't really a reunion, because only Dando remains from the band's '90s heyday.

* The Limp Bizkit reunion tour starts... in eastern Europe. The band will be playing arenas and festivals in Latvia, Ukraine, Slovakia, and Bulgaria, among other places, this summer. No word on a new album or a US tour.

* The Alice in Chains reunion album, which we first heard about in February 2008, is now supposedly coming out in September. For real.

* Oh, and Creed is getting back together. But I don't really want to talk about that.

Get a free Everclear mp3

If you go over to Everclear's website, you can get a free mp3 of their new song "Jesus was a Democrat." It's a Christmas song. Or maybe an election song. I'm not sure.

In other Everclear news, they have a new drummer, Tommy Stewart, formerly of Fuel and Godsmack, and they've been touring military bases in Iraq. Also, Art's really pumped about Obama.

Lots of '90s acts on tour this fall

I've been out of town, and my inbox has filled up with lots of tourdates. So here's a round-up:

* Alanis Morrisette (still not fat), September-November, US and Canada
* Less than Jake w/Rancid and Reel Big Fish, September, Pacific Northwest and Canada
* Nine Inch Nails, now through October, US and Mexico
* Cake, September and October, Canada and the Northeast
* Counting Crows, on tour through October with Maroon 5, US (plus Toronto)
* Jackopierce, September-November, US
* Beck, August 21-October 3, US
* Everlast, August 15 - October 29, US
* Juliana Hatfield, September, major US cities
* Smashing Pumpkins' "20th anniversary tour," August 8-20, Midwest and Southeast
* Liz Phair, performing Exile to Guyville in its entirety, August 27-29, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston
* Everclear, August and September, Midwest and Northeast

Soul Asylum and Everclear in LA

If you live in Los Angeles, get yourself down to West Hollywood TONIGHT for the first-annual Sunset Strip Music Festival, featuring, among others, Soul Asylum, Everclear, and Camper Van Beethoven (the dude from Cracker's other band).

Now, correct if I'm wrong, but the Sunset Strip was the locus for late '80s glam-metal, was it not? And Soul Asylum and Everclear were not really part of that scene, being a) '90s bands, and b) from Minneapolis and Portland, respectively.

So... ?? Somebody go and tell the rest of us what it was like.

Everclear on tour

Everclear are on tour this summer, doing mostly the festival / military base route. On Monday they played the US Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. No word on whether the al-Qaeda prisoners are big "You Make Me Feel Like a Whore" fans.

They're not coming near me. But I saw 'em last year; read that report here.

Everclear tour dates:
June 8 - Arlington, VA - 4th Annual Crystal Rocks
June 28 - Mount Clemens, MI - Stars & Stripes Festival
July 6 - Kaneohe Bay, HI - Marine Corps Base
July 9 - Lahaina, HI - Hard Rock Maui
July 18 - Waukesha, WI - Waukesha County Fair
July 26 - Royalton, MN - Halfway Jam
July 27 - Altamont, NY - WZMR Festival Show
August 28 - Marshfield, WI - Central Wisconsin State Fair

Win the new Everclear CD

Go here if you want to try and win a copy of the new Everclear CD, The Vegas Years. Or don't... just increases my odds of winning. (then again, if some enterprising Capitol employee wants to send me a copy for review, the e-mail's on the right).

Bands covering KISS: 'Nuff said.

This week's post on Everclear's covers album (featuring their contribution to the 1999 KISS-themed film Detroit Rock City) got me to thinking: KISS rules. The '90s ruled. So you know what rules extra, extra-hard? '90s bands covering KISS songs. And there are a lot of these covers. Realize that the bands coming up in the early to mid-90s were little kids when KISS were action figure / comic book / rock stars. For most '90s acts, KISS was the first band they were ever into. Enjoy the videos.
Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Detroit Rock City."


The Donnas, "Strutter."


Garth Brooks (with KISS), "Hard Luck Woman," live on the Tonight Show, summer 1994 (listen to those harmonies!)


My personal favorite, the Gin Blossoms (with KISS), "Christine Sixteen," live on David Letterman, 1994:


Toad the Wet Sprocket, "Rock and Roll All Night,":


Most of these are from 1994's "Kiss My Ass" tribute album.

New(ish) Everclear coming in April

Left out of Spin's recent article on 2008 albums to watch for was Everclear's forthcoming The Vegas Years, out April 15. Inexplicably, it's on Capitol, which dropped the band sometime around 2004.
This does explain why Everclear played so many covers when I saw them last fall: the Vegas Years is gonna be a covers album.

The album's probably on Capitol because most of the tracks were previously-recorded. It's going to include a live version of "Brown-Eyed Girl," (the overproduced studio version was on 2001's Songs from an American Movie, vol. 1), and "Boys are Back in Town," from 1999's Detroit Rock City soundtrack.

There are also a couple of Saturday morning cartoon covers: "Land of the Lost," and "Speed Racer." Sponge did the Speed Racer theme for 1995's Saturday Morning Cartoon Greatest Hits... maybe these two were rejects from that album?

Complete tracklisting, according to the band's website:

1. Rich Girl (new recording, originally by Hall & Oates)
2. Our Lips are Sealed (Go-Go's, most recently done by Hilary Duff)
3. The Boys are Back in Town
4. Bad Connection (originally by Yaz)
5. Kicks (new recording; originally by Paul Revere and the Raiders)
6. Pocahontas (originally by Neil Young)
7. Night Train to Memphis (originally by Little Jimmy Dickens; also done by Jerry Lee Lewis)
8. This Land is Your Land (originally by Woody Guthrie; Everclear version first appeared on Wake Up Everybody in 2004)
9. American Girl (originally appeared on a 1994 Tom Petty tribute album, as well as 1996's "Heroin Girl" single)
10. Brown Eyed Girl (live)
11. Southern Girls (originally by Cheap Trick; this version first appeared on the Japanese version of So Much for the Afterglow, then the 2001 single for "Wonderful")
12. Land of the Lost
13. Speed Racer (appeared on the same two albums as Southern Girls)
14. Live Intro
15. 867-5309 (Jenny) (live) (originally by Tommy Tutone)

Here's the video for "Boys are Back in Town":

Concert report: Everclear

So I saw Everclear yesterday... sort of. This isn't exactly the Everclear you or I remember. Bassist Craig Montoya and drummer Greg Eklund split in the fall of 2003, after touring for the poorly-received Slow Motion Daydream (Eklund is now playing guitar for The Oohlas, who had some blog buzz earlier this year and a song on the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack... Montoya is in two bands: one called Tri-Polar who hearken back to '80s cock-rock and one called Castella that are more Angels&Airwaves-sounding).

Art Alexakis re-tooled with a second guitarist, an organist, and a new bass player and drummer, released a greatest-hits compilation, Ten Years Gone, got dropped by Capitol, and then put out a new album last year called Welcome to the Drama Club. It did not do well, though I think some of the songs are as strong as anything else in the Everclear catalog.

Which brings us to yesterday's show, which took place at 5 in the afternoon at my local college for about 500 people, only 100 or so of whom seemed actually into the music. Art's voice wasn't in very good shape (it cracked at least four times), but they did play the hits: "Everything to Everyone," "Santa Monica," "I will Buy you a new life," "Wonderful," even "AM Radio," which, let's be honest, was the jump-the-shark moment for this band (seriously, who thought a pop song about growing up in the early '70s, featuring a sample from "Mr. Big Stuff," would work for a post-grunge band?). They also dragged out "Volvo Driving Soccer Mom," their last charting song (#30 on the modern rock charts in 2003), some songs off the new album, and, bizarrely, covers of "Brown-Eyed Girl" and "867-5309" (during which Art wore some girl's oversized sunglasses... see the picture at right).

And... it was all right. The band only played for an hour, and the arrangements seemed to have suffered in the transition from a trio to a five-piece (especially on "Everything to Everyone"), but overall, it was a decent show. Everclear was one of those bands that were few people's favorites, but few people openly hated them, either. They were there, they had some hits on the radio that people liked, and now they're struggling (see this report on Art's severe financial problems, as well as his reaction to it on his Myspace blog). The most recent album proves that Art is still a fairly-talented songwriter, so here's hoping that this isn't the last I ever hear of Everclear. Considering he's a reported $3 million in debt, I imagine Everclear will keep touring like this until the last community college in Montana says no.

But while we're here, let's take a look back, shall we?
This site has a great collection of live and rare Everclear mp3s, and YouTube, of course, has most of the band's videos, like:

They did not play "Heartspark Dollarsign" at the show yesterday, which was a disappointment, as it's one of their best songs. Apparently, Art doesn't like it much anymore, since it was inexplicably left off the greatest-hits CD.

Here's one from when everything started to go pear-shaped (intercut with some random dude's trip to Wales, but that's all I could find), the aptly-named "When It All Goes Wrong Again." I like the odd implications that Art has become some sort of cult leader.


They didn't play this one, either.

And to wrap up, here's one from the last album, called "Glorious." I really like this song. Note all the new band members.

Welcome...

Welcome, all to your new one-stop shop for all things '90s (well, not all things... I won't be discussing O.J. Simpson, Beverly Hills 90210 or Saved by the Bell: the New Class). If a band made it on the playlist of a radio station that advertised itself as the Buzz, the Edge, the X, or Z sometime in the 1990s, chances are it's gonna get talked about here. Now then, if you'll excuse me, I have to go to a mid-afternoon free Everclear show at my local college. Back with a report later.